Working Designs is dead.

[Eric]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3146301

[Julius Seeker]

They did a really good job with Lunar: Eternal Blue's translation

But I am not really sure what else they have done besides that one game (and I assume SSS as well).

I guess it has been years since that company has been utilized though.

[Nev]

Not really surprising that they're dead. It's a bit sad, though. Especially when I've seen, and had to deal with, developer-publisher-relations paranoia.

Publishers are just awful for wanting no one to ever say anything bad about them, ever. I hate corporate "we have to maintain a perfect image and we'll fuck you up if you're not going to go along with what we want on that". It makes me very very angry, because it makes people's lives miserable, and also tends to have a serious detrimental effect on the "being able to do cool stuff" factor (witness Working Designs).

In somewhat the same vein, I am currently having to deal with horrendous, unnecessary absolute hell at work because my business partner is insecure and paranoid and thinks everyone is going to murder our reputation behind our back the first time we misstep, and won't let me have technical conversations with our client right now because he's afraid they'll pick us apart if I mention minor mistakes we've made in the analysis part of the project so far...which, because he won't let me bring them up and get them rectified, are slowly but surely growing from minor into serious, major mistakes.

Ego and ego-based insecurity are the fucking scourges of all decent work.

[Agent 57]

*sigh*

Thanks for Dragon Force, guys.

[Kupek]

I'm not surprised. Working Designs was not a company that developed games; they were a company that localized games. Now that developers are willing to localize more games, there's no need for Working Designs.

[Torgo]

I hate to see them go; I really admired what they did back then. Thanks for Lunar and Alundra, guys.

[SineSwiper]

I didn't really like Working Designs for the most part. They basically stole other people's work, put cheesy US pop culture references in it (No soup for you?), and paraded around like Working Designs actually made the game. They were like the Puff Daddy of the gaming industry.

Do you know who made Lunar? Dragon Force?

[Don]

Game Arts?

[Julius Seeker]

Game Arts (same guys who made Grandia). I hadn't even actually heard of working designs until I watched the 'making of' video in Lunar Eternal Blue.

[SineSwiper]

Game Arts (same guys who made Grandia). I hadn't even actually heard of working designs until I watched the 'making of' video in Lunar Eternal Blue.

Whatever man. Working Design's pink label is only on every one of "their" games.

[Zeus]

Game Arts (same guys who made Grandia). I hadn't even actually heard of working designs until I watched the 'making of' video in Lunar Eternal Blue.

Whatever man. Working Design's pink label is only on every one of "their" games.

Like the article said, they were at one point the ONLY company that released anything niche. A game like DragonForce would not have been picked up and they ensured that we got the Lunars and stuff like Popful Mail and Vay.

If it wasn't for them, there wouldn't much of a market for "niche" titles or companies like Nippon Ichi to survive. They ensured that a good number of young gamers experienced something different (who else would have released Elemental Gearbolt?) and paved the way for stuff like Trauma Center and Katamari.

I'll sure miss them. They released some awesome stuff, just nothing recently.